Fig 1. Co-culture plate design.

The co-culture plate consists of eight individual co-culture chambers. Each chamber consists of two wells that are able to hold liquid cultures that are physically separated by a semi-permeable membrane that allows for diffusion-mediated interactions. A representative isometric mechanical drawing of a single co-culture chamber is shown in (A), note it is composed of two wells. For a better view of the wells, a cross-sectional view is shown in (B); the semi-permeable membrane is labelled. The co-culture plate, composed of eight co-culture chambers, has the same profile as a standard 96-well plate. Each well on the co-culture plate aligns with two wells of a 96-well plate and the culture volume is 2 mL per well (4 mL total per chamber) (C). An SEM image captures E. coli cells fixed on the surface of a polycarbonate membrane with 0.1 μm pores (D); the scale bar is 2 μm.